Other World Mapper Forum

Currently, when you go to lay down Features on your map, you have a few options - Single, Tile, Brick, Scatter, Along Path, and Fill Path. These are great. However, I'd like to add one that works more like a paint brush where you could adjust the size of the brush and the size determines how many entities it places as you "paint". This "brush" would function somewhat like the freehand mode when creating a landmass in that the end-user would be free to "paint" a line and Features would be placed along the path. This would be faster than using the current Along Path tool, which requires placing points (for straight lights) or dragging points (for bezie). You would just "paint" a stroke and Features would follow the painted path.

You can sort of do this with the Scatter tool, but I can never get it to place a single feature repeated along the stroke I paint. Instead, when using something like trees, I get four or five wide, no matter what I set the settings to. I could get exactly what I want by using the Single option, but it would take a long time to click, click, click along the path I want to follow. And the Along Path tool is too restrictive and slow, imo, compared to just being able to freehand a stroke and having Features "dropped" along the path by your brush.

As indicated above, a brush size could be set to determine how many Features show up along the path you create ... small brush sizes would spit out one feature wide, larger would be two ... or some such. And, of course, we would need controls for how far apart they are spaced along the path. It would be important to be able to overlap them ... or not ... as the end-user needs.

I hope I am making a bit of sense here.

If I follow you correctly, it sounds to me like that would be better handled by extending the "scatter" mode by adding settings for area (how far from the cursor the features can scatter) and density (how frequently/how far apart they're placed). Density would probably also be useful for other modes, too, allowing you to control whether the tiled/bricked/path-following/whatever features are all butted up adjacent to each other or spaced out to whatever degree.

I agree. Scatter is already almost what I want.

As far as density - yes! What you described would be most useful. Also, not only butted up against each other, but being allowed to overlap, too, for highly dense areas.

SilverSurfer1221 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:58 pm

I hope I am making a bit of sense here.

SilverSurfer1221 You are making sense!

Making the feature drawing options more “brush like” is definitely the route we want to go. So based on input, this is what we've got planned.

For the Tile/Brick/Scatter we're going to add a “Brush Size”. The “density” can already be controlled using the Horizontal and Vertical Spacing. So this should give us the kind of control over the scatter that nDervish is talking about.

For the Single feature option we're going to allow click and drag as well as add a spacing(density) option.

These changes should allow for the “painting” style of placing features that you're looking for.

Awesome!

Now, if only the "brush" could respect land borders (i.e. know not to place anything in the sea), that would totally rock.

SilverSurfer1221 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:25 am

Awesome!

Now, if only the "brush" could respect land borders (i.e. know not to place anything in the sea), that would totally rock.

I'll look into that.

Awesome! Thank you!

Now, if only the "brush" could respect land borders (i.e. know not to place anything in the sea), that would totally rock.

IMO, this feature, if it gets implemented (to not exceed landmass boundaries) should be a toggle that can get turned on or off. Obviously, there will be times the end-user will want something to extend beyond a landmass.